Godfrey to increase pay for officials

GODFREY — The village of Godfrey is preparing to significantly raise the salaries of some its elected officials.

Most significant is the mayor’s salary, which is going from $35,000 to $45,000. Salaries for village trustees will increase from $4,800 to $6,000, and the village clerk will be eligible for three-$3,000 raises contingent on meeting a series of educational requirements.

The council approved the new pay scale at their Oct. 18 meeting, with four members voting in favor, and one trustee, Michael Stumpf voting against. Trustee Mark Stewart was absent.

While the clerk’s salary has seen a slow upward trend over the last eight years, salaries for village trustees and the mayor have remained at the same level for at least the last eight years. According to Stewart, who says he would have voted for the motion had he been able to attend the meeting, raising salaries is a necessity to keep up with inflation. To encourage viable candidates to run for office, he said, a reasonable salary must be put on the table.

“I think, with the mayor’s salary, we want it to be a position that [professionals] want to run for,” Stewart said. “You have to pay them a salary. I don’t think the increase was extreme for the amount of time.”

Elected officials, Stewart said, have also taken on a larger work load over past few years, making an increase beyond inflation reasonable.

According to Karen McAtee, a village trustee, their job is to set salaries based on the position and its demands, and not based on the particular person holding the job.

“I think compared to other villages or townships of our size we are a little bit behind,” McAtee said. “It’s time for elections, and I think that’s why it came up again.”

The next elections will be held in April.

Stewart points out that as part of efforts to slowly consolidate the Village of Godfrey and its township, which are co-terminus — meaning they occupy the exact same geographical bounds — council members had given up their $600 annual township salary, so half the increase given to trustees was due to this change in bookkeeping.

In 2012, the last time the council looked at salaries for elected officials, an ordinance was approved which would have increased the mayor’s salary to $40,540.17 over four years. However, Mayor Mike McCormick, who still presides, turned down the raise, saving taxpayers just over $15,000 during the past four years. Stewart said because McCormick kept his salary at his predecessor’s level, the jump looks bigger than it otherwise would have.

Both Stewart and McAtee believe the approved increase in the clerk’s salary, which will kick in as clerks achieve higher certifications for their position, will motivate people holding the position to seek professional improvement.

“You have to have certain qualifications to even run for that position,” McAtee said. “A lot of education.”

Stewart concurred.

“Other cities just give [the clerk] a salary and say, ‘That’s it,’” Stewart said. “We thought doing it this way was pretty innovative.”

McAtee, who pointed out that being a city official is a significant amount of work — much of which, she added, is not seen by the general public — says that none of the trustees do their job primarily for the money.

“The trustees, we all do it for a different reason than the salary,” she said. “We just want to be part of our village and make some of the decisions.”